


Hold On

by seekeronthepath



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Hug, M/M, after the apocawasn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 10:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19665652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekeronthepath/pseuds/seekeronthepath
Summary: Crowley waved a hand, dismissing the apology. “Friends, then. Shake on it?”Aziraphale paused, then said rather carefully, “A handshake seems rather...unfriendly, really. Business-like.”-----After the Apocawasn't, Aziraphale and Crowley try out a hug. It doesn't go too badly, for a first attempt.





	Hold On

Afterwards - after the apocalypse didn't happen, after the Antichrist turned out to be (as Aziraphale put it) "a very lovely boy", after Heaven and Hell tried and failed to take their respective pounds of flesh - after that, they retreated to the bookshop and tried to comprehend the (as Crowley put it) "fucking ineffability of it all". For some unexplained reason, their respective executions had each been followed not long after by a memo to the effect of a full pardon, and freedom to continue on Earth as they wished, so long as they avoided contact with other occult and/or ethereal beings and didn't interfere with any Grand Plans.

"We must've scared the shit out of them," Crowley said, sprawling back on Aziraphale's couch to hide the way his hands still trembled at the thought of Aziraphale being executed. (Bastards, the lot of them. Not even a trial, just 'Step into the fire, there's a good lad.' Bastards!)

Aziraphale was not trembling. He sat upright in his chair, hands folded in his lap, and said calmly, “Perhaps there was a directive from Higher Up. The Almighty is merciful, after all.” He nodded, as if to punctuate his statement with the certainty he hoped to feel.

Crowley snorted. Sure. Merciful. “If anyone  _ intervened _ , my money’s on the Antichrist,” he muttered. Restless, he surged to his feet and began to pace. “What are we going to do now, angel? Now that we don’t have to report to Head Office anymore. Do we even need The Arrangement, if we aren’t going to be getting assignments all the time?”

Aziraphale looked up at him sharply. “You propose we go our separate ways, then?” he said carefully. “Me in my bookshop, and you...travelling the world, I suppose. Or the stars.”

Leaning against a pillar, Crowley raised his eyebrows. “No point going to Alpha Centauri without company, is there?” he pointed out. “Nah, I’ll stick around here. Question is, if we aren’t working, then we can’t be work colleagues - so what are we?”

“Oh.” (The simple word might have meant very little, but Aziraphale’s face made it mean a lot more. It meant ‘You don’t want to be alone either, do you?’, and ‘Thank you’, and ‘I love you too’.)

“Allies?” Crowley suggested casually, taking his sunglasses off and tucking them into a pocket of his jacket. “Ex-coworkers? Casual acquaintances? Co-godfathers? Drinking buddies? Friends?”

“Friends,” Aziraphale seized on gratefully. “Crowley, of course we’re friends. And I’m...I quite regret saying anything to the contrary.”

Crowley waved a hand, dismissing the apology. “Friends, then. Shake on it?”

Aziraphale paused, then said rather carefully, “A handshake seems rather...unfriendly, really. Business-like.”

“Mm, it does rather,” Crowley agreed casually, tilting his head. For centuries, Aziraphale had maintained a very definite radius of personal space, holding himself quite separate from the possibility of being bumped into or leaned on or even just standing shoulder to shoulder. Crowley could count the instances where they’d so much as touched hands. “Friends do a lot of hugging these days, but that seems a little  _ involved _ , doesn’t it?”

Aziraphale’s lips pursed slightly, as if they weren’t entirely happy with this turn of events. “Indeed,” he said. “There must be something to it, though, mustn’t there, since they’re so enthusiastic about it.”

“Wanna try?”

Aziraphale averted his eyes, fiddling with his waistcoat. “It seems rather undignified,” he said reluctantly. “It’s a very  _ embodied _ thing, isn’t it?”

“So?” Crowley shrugged. “We’ve had bodies for six thousand years now, you get used to it.” He held out his arms. “Come on, angel, give me a hug.”

The look on Aziraphale’s face as he ‘reluctantly’ stepped into Crowley’s embrace was the same suppressed delight he always had when Crowley indulged him, but that didn’t make the hug any less awkward.[1] 

It got rather more awkward when, after Crowley managed to arrange himself so he was more-or-less draped over Aziraphale’s shoulders, Aziraphale shuddered, then collapsed into his arms.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley asked, trying to pull away in case there was some sort of angelic/demonic interference causing the problem. But Aziraphale’s hands clutched at his jacket, which made the attempt rather difficult.

“I - I do apologise,” Aziraphale said shakily, his voice muffled against Crowley’s shoulder. “I - this whole business has been rather overwhelming, and it just hit me all in a rush, I’m afraid.”

And then Crowley understood, because he’d had a similar moment when he’d stepped into the bookshop after everything, and known, known  _ properly _ , that he was safe, and it was over. “It’s fine, angel,” he murmured, hugging Aziraphale tighter, and rubbing his back between the bases of his hidden wings. “There’s nowhere else I need to be.”

And if his neck was wet when Aziraphale finally stepped away, neither of them felt the need to say anything about it. 

  
[1] When two beings acquire their bodies before hugs are invented, and live six thousand years without trying it, their first hug will, of course, be clumsy. Hugs require a certain amount of adjustment to the other person, and when neither of the participants have had the chance to acquire the trick of working out whose arms go up and whose go down, or whose head goes where, the experience has more in common with two action figures being pressed together by a small child than anything which could be called an ‘embrace’.


End file.
